Here is a link to a TED Talk “The Agony of Opioid Withdrawal and What Doctors Should Tell Patients About It” shared in a recent CMS Patient & Family Engagement webinar. It’s 13 minutes long and emphasizes how easily patients can overuse prescribed opioids and how difficult it can be to stop taking this medication.

The National Prescription Drug Take Back Day addresses a crucial public safety and public health issue. According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 6.4 million Americans abused controlled prescription drugs. The study shows that a majority of abused prescription drugs were obtained from family and friends, often from the home medicine cabinet.

Too often, unused prescription drugs find their way into the wrong hands. That’s dangerous and often tragic.

The DEA’s Take Back Day provides an opportunity for Americans to prevent drug addiction and overdose deaths. Let’s clean out our medicine cabinets and turn in – safely and anonymously – a record amount of prescription drugs.

From Practice to Regulation and Back Again

Presented by Barbara Allison-Bryan, MD, Virginia Department of Health Professions, and Marc Huntoon, MD, Virginia Commonwealth University Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Management Specialist at VCSQI March 15, 2018 Quarterly Meeting in Richmond, Va. Includes Virginia’s national leadership efforts to impact prescribing practices and evidence-based pain management practices including “Use of Risk Tool in Assessment” and “How to Have the Difficult Conversation with a Patient.”

The VCSQI SAN 2.0 Opioid Workgroup reviewed CDC’s Guidelines for Opioid Prescribing for Chronic Non-Cancer pain and how these recommendations may assist you with establishing your own guidelines for other types of patients. Twelve recommendations are outlined, categorized into three major topics: when to prescribe opioids, how to prescribe opioids, and assessing the patient’s risk when using opioids.

Long-term opioid use often begins with treatment of acute pain. When opioids are used for acute pain, clinicians should prescribe the lowest effective dose of immediate-release opioids and should prescribe no greater quantity than needed for the expected duration of pain severe enough to require opioids. Three days or less will often be sufficient; more than seven days will rarely be needed.

Steve Dickson, CEO for Cardiovascular Surgeons, PA, Orlando, Fla. shares how their practice is working to standardize opioid prescribing practices among their clinicians. Ivan Berkel and Eddie Fonner recently made a site visit there to help them in this process. This discussion may help you begin to take your own steps for addressing this critically important care process.

Steve Dickson, CEO, Cardiovascular Surgeons, PA, explains efforts to standardize prescribing among 12 surgeons and other clinicians in their practice in Orlando, Florida.

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Our President has declared the opioid crisis in the United States a “national public health emergency” and announced initiatives to address the epidemic. Here are resources for your reference in reassessing your prescribing practices “to do no harm.” Have conversations to alert patients to safely dispose of unused pain medication. It’s been reported that 55 percent of abusers obtain painkillers from a friend or relative!

Addressing the Opioid Misuse Crisis is a priority of VCSQI SAN 2.0 and CMS!

“Impacting the Opioid Crisis through Improved Prescribing Practices”

In this one-hour VCSQI SAN 2.0 sponsored webinar Dr. Jared Skillings from American Psychological Association and Dr. Robert Bales, Family Medicine Cleveland Clinic and Assistant Professor of Family Medicine provide an overview of the crisis, current trends, general considerations when prescribing opioids, and non-pharmacological pain management techniques.

Check Out These Recent Opioid-related Releases from CDC

With the tagline “It only takes a little to lose a lot,” the Rx Awareness Campaign tells the real stories of people whose lives were torn apart by prescription opioids. The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness that prescription opioids can be addictive and dangerous.